[capocannoniere]

While Airbnb is clearly going through a rough patch right now, there is a clear bull-case argument for why Airbnb will emerge stronger than it's ever been after this:

- Airbnb has sufficient cash in the bank to survive the crisis.

- A significant % of hotels and budget chains will not survive the crisis --> decreased competitor supply

- People will be looking for budget options when traveling --> increased demand for Airbnb

- People will seek to make extra income to make ends meet --> increased supply for Airbnb

[hyperbovine]

I honestly don't know what fraction of AirBnb's business still consists of indies renting out rooms to vacationers for short-term stays. But that market is simply hosed for the foreseeable future, if not forever. Complete lack of enthusiasm from guests and hosts alike. Driving strangers around in your car or having them stay in your home is never again going to seem like the great idea that it once did.

[taude]

I think this is spot on. Every time I've been to Europe to stay in an Airbnb in the last 4 or 5 years, it's been a professional operation. Same with most of the properties in the states. These weren't people leaving their house for a weekend and trying to get some extra income. These were people who invested in real estate to get into the side-channel of psuedo-hotel business. They obviously have mortgages, likely not under the same rules of own-occupied that might potentially give them protections....

As far as AirBnb trying to get the customer base back, once the economy starts to open, even their new policies for having hosts have 24 hours between guests and rules for how to clean. How is AirBnb going to enforce that? Not to mention, their refund policy basically sucks right now, so I don't see me or my friends jumping back into using AirBnbs once travel does pick up, no way I'm committing to a vacation when we my have more surges coming, etc... I'll choose a hotel who I can cancel and not have to pay.

[2rsf]

> Every time I've been to Europe to stay in an Airbnb in the last 4 or 5 years, it's been a professional operation

my experience is the exact opposite, but maybe because I travel with family and rent bigger houses- do you ?

[misiti3780]

once we have a vaccine, or very effective therapeutics, or good antibodies testing things should go back to normal. that may not be for years though.

[Apocryphon]

Going back to the root comment, it's questionable if Airbnb will make it to that new time of normal.

[nrmitchi]

There may very well be a clear bull-case argument for Airbnb being successful long term, but at the moment that's not really the point.

Any long term employees who have been around long enough to even have the decision to make regarding exercising options (from other comments it appears that Airbnb switched to RSUs at some point), would be facing a massive tax liability this year.

It is clear that there will be some debate and uncertainty around a fair-market-value for Airbnb shares in light of COVID, but AFAIK any capital gains, and therefore tax liability, will be based on their most recent funding rounds (which were obviously based in the pre-COVID world)

Edit: typo-d a word

[gkop]

It would be interesting to know the fair market value of their next 409A valuation compared to the previous one. The reduced FMV could shift the equation and help those laid off employees exercise at least a portion of their shares when otherwise they would be unable to responsibly do so. Oh, and it would reduce taxes on vesting RSUs for remaining employees too. The worst hit may be those that receive RSUs or exercise options before the write-down, huh? Airbnb should hurry then...

[taude]

Would be interesting to know what % of AirBnb Hosts do it on a semi-professional basis. I get your arguments for the mom-and-pop opening your house and all that. But everytime I've been to Europe, or to big cities, the AirBnbs were almost always part of a bigger operation. And then there's all the people who bought rental properties to operate their own AirBnb rentals.

Anyway, my hunch is that the percent % of AirBnbs that are actually people utilizing their excess space (initial AirBnb model) is small vs more hosts entered via owning and operating their own hotels through buying leveraged rental properties and the AirBnb platform....

[acchow]

> A significant % of hotels and budget chains will not survive the crisis --> decreased competitor supply

The actual hotel properties are not going to be abandoned, demolished, or converted into something else. Hotels will continue to run as hotels, tho possibly with a change of ownership/management.

[elliekelly]

Between the recession and a general fear of unnecessary travel during coronavirus I doubt there will be increased demand for Airbnb.

[Apocryphon]

Airbnb hosts converting properties into 6-month or longer term rentals --> decreased supply for Airbnb

[dorchadas]

And, hopefully, just hopefully, governments will actually step in and stop the supply from going back to AirBnB, helping alleviate some of the housing crisis in their country (I know AirBnB is a huge issue in Ireland, and several of my Irish friends are praying it fails to force all those apartments and houses back on the market; I am myself, as I'm possibly moving there this fall for a masters.)

[vzidex]

The funniest case will be if governments don't even have to step in - I've read cases of AirBNB hosts being extremely overleveraged in their "investment" properties. With some luck, they'll be forced to sell or convert to long-term rentals (which are _very_ strongly protected where I live) to avoid defaulting on the cheap debt they gorged on.

[talideon]

There is, unfortunately, the risk of others doing the exactly the same thing subsequently, because they'll see this as a black swan event that will clear out the market of smaller overleveraged AirBnB "hosts", leaving them to purchase the properties in question. There are some big players, such as "The Key Collection", who are heavy users of AirBnB, with a large number of properties, as well as more legitimate properties like hotels, guesthouses, &c.

There are a few important things to keep in mind.

The Irish government has not been very good at enforcing the law around this kind of thing, and I see no reason why that should change, especially as the biggest party on the government side of the Dáil was the main party in the last government, and their records on housing (they're basically Tories) is notoriously bad. The other party in the proposed government is an ideologically similar party, and the one the caused our economy to implode due to property speculation in the 2000s.

The outlook is not positive.

[dorchadas]

Yeah, that is an unfortunate situation that Ireland has found itself in. I know several of the people I've talked to (most of them native Irish speakers), are really upset about it, having voted for Sinn Féin, and them getting the majority of the votes but not ending up controlling parliament.

Still, at least the outlook will hopefully be decent for me if I do move there this year (depends on how I think economy is going...and if uni's actually do open in September).

[talideon]

One hilarious part of all this is that I'm not strongly contemplating getting a mortgage and buying a place _purely_ on the basis that between taxes and repayments, it would cost me 2/3 the amount I currently pay in rent.